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Homework challenges can be a constant struggle for many students, affecting both school life and life at home. Students who constantly miss homework fall behind in their grades, causing more unnecessary stress in school and at home.

Cutting homework time in half.

All students are unique and learn differently. Learning and productivity go hand in hand: A student's productivity level directly influences his or her learning potential and an optimized learning potential is a key factor to increased productivity. So which factors make you learn faster and perform more efficiently?

Tips for students:

Study Guide. Think of homework as a study guide! You can call it ‘active learning’, where you use the homework as a guide to learn the topic at hand and to make connections to something your teacher said in class or something you read in a book.

Test Prep. Think of your homework assignments as a help to study for your test. You have the opportunity to correct your mistakes and ask your teacher, parent or tutor any questions and thus prepare for your test.

Thinking Patterns: Are you a literal or abstract thinker? What motivates you to learn?

Time management: How can we balance productivity with psychological rewards?

Environment: What setting makes you succeed? Where do you have a psychological advantage?

Power down. Turn off all your electronics! “I always figured that the TV, cell phone, and stuff helped make homework less boring,” Zoe said. “Now I realize it is the other way around. When everything is off, I can concentrate better, get my homework done faster, and then have more free time to do that stuff later.”

Tips for parents:

Make homework a purposeful job that includes a reward once completed.

Monitor grades daily/weekly.

Exercise and body motion helps the brain.

Help to transition to homework mode by calming them down and letting them know of the change.

Encourage completion of homework at school.

Schedule an empty period at school where homework can be worked on.

Get a tutor/outside support.

Metacognition. This is the ability to stand back and see oneself when doing a task. You ask yourself, “How am I doing? How did I do?” A student can change behavior in response to feedback or questions from an adult. You may say, “let’s talk about how you’re going to study for your test. What strategies will you use? How will you know when you’ve studied enough?”